:: gia’s blog ::

During the Republican primaries I was thinking “You know, if McCain wins the nomination and ends up winning the election, it’ll be OK. He’s not completely batshit insane, certainly compared to the Bush White House. So if it happens, I’ll be OK with it.” I was always going to vote Democrat, of course, but wasn’t massively worried about McCain.

I have now completely changed my mind. With this whole Sarah Palin thing, McCain has shown that he is clearly chaotic and dangerous. He should not be in charge of a country which has so very much at stake. America has a chance to step out of the darkness, a chance to wake-up, a chance to join this wonderful world we live in. This will NOT happen with McCain in the White House. If he puts so very little thought into who he chooses as his running mate - the person who could end up being the Vice President of the country for 4 whole years- what amount of contemplation will go into, say, starting another bloody war?
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The very wonderful Bill Maher has a documentary coming out this autumn called ‘Religulous‘. I am so seeing this.

… of the Dinosaurs.

Artwork by Derek Chatwood

The Maya of ancient Mexico had very advanced concepts of mathematics, astronomy and Time. They kept track of solar and lunar years, eclipses and the cycles of visible planets. To carry out their calendric and astronomical calculations they developed a sophisticated mathematical system where units are written with dots and bars are used to represent five units. They also developed a vigesimal (20 base) positioning system, similar to the decimal positioning system we use today.

Today’s date written according to the Mayan calendar

The Maya’s sacred book, the Popol Vuh, explains the creation of the Universe - with all the usual gods and goddesses, a Plumed Serpent and a Flood. According to their beliefs, Creation happened after Tepeu, the Sky God, and Gukumatz, the Plumed Serpent (or plain old Snake God, depending on which interpretation you follow) decided that they needed to be worshipped. Why is it that these all-powerful beings are always so damned insecure? Anyway, it took the Maya Creation Gods several attempts to create Human Beings who would worship them (a bit like God’s first attempt at creating Woman). First, they created animals who didn’t worship them, so they banished them to the forest. Next, they created Man out of mud, but soon they just washed away (there’s a lesson for you, Yaweh). Next, they created Man out of wood, but they were pretty rubbish at ‘worshipping’ so the Gods got angry and Flooded the place to get rid of them. Finally, Worshipful Man was made out of Maize.

The Maya used several calendars simultaneously - one was 13 days long, another was 20 days long, they had one which covered 260 days and another covering 365 days. They even had calendars covering much longer periods of Time. One of these called the ‘Long Count’, and is a continuous record of days from the ‘Zero date’ beginning of the Worshipful Man- which according to the Maya’s detailed calendars happened at Long Count 0.0.0.0.0. This date is thought to correspond to August 12th or 13th, 3114 BCE in the Gregorian calendar. According to the Maya, the current Long Count will finish on 13.0.0.0.0 or on the 21st or 23rd of December 2012 CE.

The alautun: The Maya’s longest named period of Time representing approximately 63 million years.

Some people – whacky New Agers and many people who should know better – have taken this to mean that the world will end. The fact that the end of the Mayan Long count ends on or near the Winter Solstice adds much more significance to people who seem to think there’s some kind of ‘supernatural magic’ in the revolution of the Earth around the Sun.

What I can’t understand is why people think the Maya had more of an ability to see into the future than any one else. The Unarians thought aliens would invade Earth in 2001. Didn’t happen. The Concerned Christians cult believed an earthquake would wipe Denver off the map in 1998. Didn’t happen. The Third Reich was supposed to have lasted 1,000 years. Didn’t happen…

Or why not believe the Lord’s Witnesses who believe the world will end on the 21st of March this year? Some guy named Harold Camping has written a book which clearly states that the Bible predicts the end of the world to be in 2011. Why not believe him? Why not believe that the end of the world will happen sometime between the first of March and the first of April THIS YEAR, when the world’s population reaches 6.66 billion??!

When it’s pointed out to believers in Mayan prophecy that they sound ‘whacky’ they will often say, ‘It won’t be the end of the whole world, just a monumental change!’ I’d say that there have have been all kinds of monumental changes recently - the discovery of penecillin was pretty world changing. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was pretty monumental. The Moon landings were one small step off our planet for the very first time. I’d say that changed things pretty significantly. Hell, even Live Aid changed the way we think about the less fortunate in the world!

Between the end of the Mayan civilization and now there have been HUNDREDS of massively monumental changes- wars, disasters, famines which have wiped out millions upon millions of people… still the world goes on and those events purely become our history. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why would the Mayan calendar have any more significance than this graphic from the Long Now Foundation?

Do you think in just under 8,000 years from now some people will find this and predict the “end of the world” in the year 12,000 CE because of the “mysteries of the Long Now chart”? Think scholars will talk about how the Long Now believed the beginning of Our Time was 8,000 BCE and that the world would end after 20,000 years? Why wouldn’t they? It states that pretty clearly, doesn’t it?

I’m afraid that anyone who believes there is any deep significance in Mayan Prophecy is quite clearly incapable of finding joy and wonder in the real world and instead insists on creating stories which are based on fear, negativity, insecurity and self-loathing. Seriously, you can’t predict the end of the world *and* love Yourself, Humanity and the Universe, can you?

Sad really.

(Note: I must thank Adrian Pegg for inspiring the title of this post. :)

**EDIT** 31.08.08
Here is my husband talking about this whilst filming his new documentary on Time.

We all remember this video of some religious numpty claiming that bananas were made by God specifically for humans… He thinks a banana disproves evolution cos we can open it fairly easily.

Now some other ignorant shit tries to use a jar of peanut butter to disprove evolution.

But here is where it starts to get strange and makes me think that maybe, just maybe these fuckwits are on to something…

Guess who loved fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches… Go on… Yep. The King, Elvis Presley. Yes. It’s true.

Who else was ‘The King’? Jesus, of course. The King of Israel. The coincidences get stranger…

• Jesus said “Love thy neighbor.” Elvis said “Don’t be cruel.”
• Jesus was part of the Trinity. Elvis’ first band was a trio.
• Jesus walked on water. Elvis surfed (Blue Hawaii, 1965).
• Jesus was resurrected. Elvis had the famous 1968 “Comeback” TV special.
• Jesus said “If a man thirst, let him come to me, and drink.” (John 7:37). Elvis said “Drinks on me” (Jail House Rock, 1957).
• Jesus is a Capricorn (Dec 25). Elvis is a Capricorn (Jan8).
• “Jesus’ countenance…like lightning…raiment snow white.” (Matthew 28:3) Elvis wore snow white jumpsuits with lightning bolts.

So basically, Elvis was Jesus cos of all them things they had in common, like, AND cos he was tryin to tell us that evolution was all a buncha hockum cos uh them thar peanut butter n banana sandwiches… n stuff.

It’s so clear to me now. Evolution is wrong. Eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

There’s more Jesus & Elvis comparisons in this book…

What?! Are you trying to tell me that Jesus Christ didn’t rise up to Heaven body and soul and instead was just a guy… with a kid?

But. But. But.

He was resurrected! It says so in that book! I mean… This will just confuse things enormously.

via New York Times:

In surveys conducted in 2005, people in the United States and 32 European countries were asked whether to respond ”true,” ”false” or ”not sure” to this statement: ”Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals.” The same question was posed to Japanese adults in 2001.

The United States had the second-highest percentage of adults who said the statement was false and the second-lowest percentage who said the statement was true, researchers reported in the current issue of Science.

Only adults in Turkey expressed more doubts on evolution. In Iceland, 85 percent agreed with the statement.”

Thanks to the ever lovely Bob Z…

God is God, right? By that I mean that the Christian God, the Jewish G*d, the Islamic God… they are all one in the same being. All three religions share similar stories, prophets, beliefs…

Why then would this God tell different people different things?

He tells the Jews they are His chosen people. He gives the Christians His son to die for their sins. He tells the Muslims to establish His kingdom on Earth. He says ‘Thou shalt not kill’ to Moses, but then has Mohammed proclaim, ‘The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer…’

An omnipotent and omniscient being who created the Universe exists out of Space and Time (and, of course, SpaceTime). 1000BC, 30AD, 2006CE, ‘last week’ have no meaning to Him. The creator of the Universe exists at all Times and throughout all Space. He is the Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End.

The word of God is the ‘Word of God’. The Creator of the Universe is perfect and cannot make mistakes. Clearly then what information he possess is correct at the first moment he reveals it to His Creation. He can’t ‘change His mind’.

The Torah, the Bible and the Koran are clearly all imperfect. One book says ‘An eye for an eye’, another says, ‘Turn the other cheek’. One book says that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, was crucified and ascended to Heaven, another says that he was a prophet, *wasn’t* killed, yet ascended to Heaven alive. One book says that Christ is the end of the law for everyone who believes, then 600 years later someone else comes along who’s actually ‘the final prophet’. One book says that anyone who believes in the Koran, the Torah and Jesus, and ‘work righteousness’, shall have their reward with the Lord, later on the same book says ’slay them (the infidels) wherever you catch them.’

Now either God has made mistakes which, if I believed in Him, I’d think was pretty damned unacceptable and I’d be seeking some kind of investigation into His suitability as Ultimate Power Over The Universe and might even urge for an impeachment process to begin immediately OR, as is actually the case, all of those books were written by *humans* who, as is obvious to all, are capable of extreme error (look at Hitler, Milosevic, Saddam and Paul McCartney’s post-Wings career for some examples of this).

At what point are people of all religions going to understand that they can’t use their belief in the infallibility of *their* god as a justification for behaving badly against other human beings? At what point are they going to take responsibility for their own actions and stop blaming some made-up deity? At what point are religious people going to wake up and realise that they are wasting their one and only life on a fantasy world? At what point are they going to accept that they are wrong?

I’m fed up with them all.